Visa left without the support of the owners of debit bitcoin cards
Not so long ago, it became known that the Visa payment system suspended the service for owners of plastic cards with Bitcoin support. This decision affected BitPay, TenX, Bitwala and Wirex customers. As it turned out, the problem is that the issuer of the cards, WaveCrest Bank, does not comply with the membership rules of the Visa Europe payment service, thereby violating the organization’s policies.
After it became aware of the refusal of servicing of Bitcoin cards by Visa, representatives of the cryptocurrency world started talking about the fact that traditional financial institutions started a war against cryptocurrencies. WaveCrest made a similar statement: “The changes happened very quickly, so we did not have time to notify all customers. The decision itself shows that Visa, as well as proxies of other traditional financial companies, do not wish to serve the growing crypto-economy. And this, in turn, stimulates further implementation of our concept of creating the first cryptocurrency bank. ”
Most blocked card holders received their funds back. In particular, this happened with the money of users of the Cryptopay platform. As far as one can understand, bitcoin cards have become what, in essence, are just pieces of plastic.
Of course, this is not too comforting for those who have lost their relatively reliable withdrawal channel. Pleases at least the fact that the money was not blocked (in any case, this was announced at once by several companies whose clients were withdrawing funds to Bitcoin cards).
A little later, the Visa company stated that its decision had nothing to do with countering cryptocurrency. The only (but very significant) problem is the suspension of work with a partner who has ceased to fulfill his obligations. “We confirm that WaveCrest’s Visa membership has been terminated due to the ongoing violation of our operating rules. All WaveCrest Visa cards were closed as a result. However, Visa has other partners that allow withdrawing funds from cryptocurrency accounts in the form of fiat currencies. Visa emphasizes that the fulfillment of its operational rules is an extremely important condition for the work of partners. ”
The actions of the payment system put those companies that were dependent on WaveCrest, not to mention the customers, in a very awkward position. All of the above applies only to those cardholders who are not US citizens.
By the way, in the words of Visa that the company is not at all against cryptocurrency, one can doubt. The fact is that quite recently, the head of the company Alfred Kelly said that he does not see Bitcoin as a means of payment: “We at Visa do not plan to conduct transactions based on cryptocurrencies. We only work with fiat transactions. ”
This payment system in October last year announced that it was suspending the service of cryptocurrency debit cards outside the European Economic Area (EEA). This was at one time reported many resources, including The Merkle .
Then the company recommended its own clients outside the EU to take urgent measures to withdraw funds. By the beginning of the new year, cryptocurrency payment cards were planned to be automatically blocked (as far as is known, this was done).
At the same time, the residents of the European Union were able to use their cards for payments, both in the EEA and abroad. This greatly shaken the position of cryptocurrency startups, who decided to enter the global market with their payment cards. At the same time, the release of prepaid plastic and payment bitcoin cards for non-EU residents was also stopped by the Gibraltar-based financial company WaveCrest Holdings Limited, which was discussed above. With it, until the last events, about 75% of all payment blockchain startups worked.
No matter what anyone says, but traditional payment systems are clearly not happy about the appearance of competitors, not even the most powerful ones. Presumably, in the future the standoff will gradually increase, even if I would like to hope for cooperation between Visa, MasterCard and cryptocurrency systems.
After it became aware of the refusal of servicing of Bitcoin cards by Visa, representatives of the cryptocurrency world started talking about the fact that traditional financial institutions started a war against cryptocurrencies. WaveCrest made a similar statement: “The changes happened very quickly, so we did not have time to notify all customers. The decision itself shows that Visa, as well as proxies of other traditional financial companies, do not wish to serve the growing crypto-economy. And this, in turn, stimulates further implementation of our concept of creating the first cryptocurrency bank. ”
Most blocked card holders received their funds back. In particular, this happened with the money of users of the Cryptopay platform. As far as one can understand, bitcoin cards have become what, in essence, are just pieces of plastic.
Of course, this is not too comforting for those who have lost their relatively reliable withdrawal channel. Pleases at least the fact that the money was not blocked (in any case, this was announced at once by several companies whose clients were withdrawing funds to Bitcoin cards).
A little later, the Visa company stated that its decision had nothing to do with countering cryptocurrency. The only (but very significant) problem is the suspension of work with a partner who has ceased to fulfill his obligations. “We confirm that WaveCrest’s Visa membership has been terminated due to the ongoing violation of our operating rules. All WaveCrest Visa cards were closed as a result. However, Visa has other partners that allow withdrawing funds from cryptocurrency accounts in the form of fiat currencies. Visa emphasizes that the fulfillment of its operational rules is an extremely important condition for the work of partners. ”
The actions of the payment system put those companies that were dependent on WaveCrest, not to mention the customers, in a very awkward position. All of the above applies only to those cardholders who are not US citizens.
By the way, in the words of Visa that the company is not at all against cryptocurrency, one can doubt. The fact is that quite recently, the head of the company Alfred Kelly said that he does not see Bitcoin as a means of payment: “We at Visa do not plan to conduct transactions based on cryptocurrencies. We only work with fiat transactions. ”
Well, what about MasterCard?
This payment system in October last year announced that it was suspending the service of cryptocurrency debit cards outside the European Economic Area (EEA). This was at one time reported many resources, including The Merkle .
Then the company recommended its own clients outside the EU to take urgent measures to withdraw funds. By the beginning of the new year, cryptocurrency payment cards were planned to be automatically blocked (as far as is known, this was done).
At the same time, the residents of the European Union were able to use their cards for payments, both in the EEA and abroad. This greatly shaken the position of cryptocurrency startups, who decided to enter the global market with their payment cards. At the same time, the release of prepaid plastic and payment bitcoin cards for non-EU residents was also stopped by the Gibraltar-based financial company WaveCrest Holdings Limited, which was discussed above. With it, until the last events, about 75% of all payment blockchain startups worked.
No matter what anyone says, but traditional payment systems are clearly not happy about the appearance of competitors, not even the most powerful ones. Presumably, in the future the standoff will gradually increase, even if I would like to hope for cooperation between Visa, MasterCard and cryptocurrency systems.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/409823/